DoD Modernization Program to Acquire Cray XC40

Today Cray announced the Department of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) has awarded the Company with a $26 million supercomputer contract for a Cray XC40 supercomputer and three Cray Sonexion storage systems.

It is imperative that ERDC DSRC continue to accelerate technology development by providing researchers and scientists with highly-advanced supercomputing technologies,” said Bobby Hunter, Director of the ERDC DSRC. “Cray supercomputers have played a significant role in the HPCMP and the ERDC DSRC, for several decades. We are pleased that our partnership with Cray will continue in support of our vision of using advanced computational environments to solve DoD’s most critical mission challenges.”

The Cray systems will be located at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center DoD Supercomputing Resource Center (ERDC DSRC) in Vicksburg, Mississippi. As the research organization of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, ERDC conducts R&D in support of the soldier, military installations, and civil works projects, as well as for other federal agencies, state and municipal authorities, and with U.S. industry through innovative work agreements. ERDC will use its Cray XC40 supercomputer and Cray Sonexion storage systems in support of its mission to develop innovative solutions for a safer, better world.

“ERDC is one of the world’s premier engineering and scientific research organizations, and we are honored to once again provide its research teams with innovative supercomputing and storage technologies through the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program,” said Fred Kohout, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Cray. “Cray has enjoyed a long history with the DoD and the ERDC, and we are excited that our long-term collaboration supporting their important mission will continue.”

Awarded by U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the contract is valued at approximately $26 million in product revenue. The system is expected to be installed in mid-2017. The new system will include Intel® Xeon® E5 computing cores, as well as Intel® Xeon Phi™ processors, formerly code-named “Knights Landing”, and will be the first-ever production-ready Knights Landing system for the HPCMP.

In operation for more than 20 years, the DoD HPCMP remains focused on its mission to accelerate technology development and transition into superior defense capabilities through the strategic application of high performance computing, networking and computational expertise. The HPCMP provides the people, expertise and technologies that increase the productivity of the DoD’s Research, Development, Test and Evaluation community. Cray has worked closely with the HPCMP since its inception.

Resource Links:

Latest Video

Industry Perspectives

In this Nvidia podcast, Bryan Catanzaro from Baidu describes how machines with Deep Learning capabilities are now better at recognizing objects in images than humans. “AI gets better and better until it kind of disappears into the background,” says Catanzaro — NVIDIA’s head of applied deep learning research — in conversation with host Michael Copeland on this week’s edition of the new AI Podcast. “Once you stop noticing that it’s there because it works so well — that’s when it’s really landed.” [Read More...]

White Papers

This white paper reviews common HPC-environment challenges and outlines solutions that can help IT professionals deliver best-in-class HPC cloud solutions—without undue stress and organizational chaos.